Chapter 65: The Great Forge of Rene
Aegis and Ruffily approached Rene the following morning. Aegis was asleep in the back of her cart as it was pulled along the dirt road through the forest by her horse, a beautiful black mare. The sun was creeping up over the trees sending sun rays down on them between the cracks in the canopy. A light cool wind blew through the rustling treetops as a few birds chirped in the distance. When the land of Rene came clearly into view Ruffily gave Aegis’ leg a quick shake to wake him up before running ahead to the edge of the cliff to take in the scenery before her.
“Whoa! It’s pretty, woof!” Ruffily called out loudly as Aegis sat up sleepily, allowing Aegis to look down over the ledge of the cliff and see Pyri sitting on the pasture fence reading a book while Lina was in the training grounds with Farlion and Rakkan, teaching them some moves with her daggers, and Amlie was in her farmfield that was now overflowing with various plants, mainly cotton though. All of them looked up and stopped what they were doing when they heard Ruffily’s voice.
“Did you make that bridge?” She asked with a wagging tail.
“Yup. We’re building the houses over there.” He motioned to Farlion and Amlie’s house. “The forge should be over there somewhere.” Aegis pointed way off to the left side of Rene beyond the Training grounds, but still near the river. “Come, you can pick out a spot for your house.” He headed down the ramp and motioned her to follow. She nodded and led her horse and cart down the ramp behind him.
Lina ran over to stand beside Pyri as she hopped off the fence, the two stood side by side to watch Aegis and Ruffily walk down the ramp towards them with the horse and cart while chatting with one another.
“Is that Ruffily?” Pyri asked Lina.
“I g-guess.” Lina shrugged.
“They seem to be getting along well.” Pyri commented.
“Y-yeah.” Lina replied nervously as Amlie and Rakkan joined them. When Ruffily led her horse and cart over the bridge, Pyri got the first clear view of the beautiful black mare shaking her neck back and forth, the sleek beautiful black hair of her mane reflecting the sunlight as it swayed. It was as if Pyri was watching a slow motion shampoo commercial for horses.
“She’s beautiful…” Pyri said as her jaw dropped.
“Y-you think so?” Lina asked worriedly.
“Yes… those ears, that tail…” Pyri went on dreamily as Lina looked at Ruffily’s floppy brown dog ears and her fluffy brown dog tail wagging behind her. “And that beautiful black mane…” Pyri finished. Lina took a second to realize that Pyri was talking about the horse and not Ruffily and let out a sigh of relief.
“Hello, my name is Ruffily! I will be helping build the forge, woof!” She said excitedly as she held out her hand to greet everyone. Aegis saw his mom react to the woof the same way he had the first time he heard it, but she shook the expression off her face quickly and shook Ruffily’s hand.
“I’m Amlie, the farmer.” Amlie smiled.
“I’m Rakkan, Guard captain.” Rakkan bowed politely.
“I’m Pyri, Aegis’ mom.”
“I’m Lina, his wife.” Lina spoke with a confidence Aegis hadn’t heard before, directing it fully towards Ruffily as she shook her hand with a tight grip. It wasn’t until Lina looked at Aegis that she realized what she’d said. “I m-mean, I-i-in g-g-game.” Her face went red and she looked down at her feet as Pyri gave her an impressed nod and Aegis’ face reddened.
“Where’s Darkshot?” Aegis asked to try and change the topic quickly.
“He went to go hunt some high level direwolves. So you can make him some ‘sick’ leather armor.” Pyri said with air quotes.
“W-well, it's nice to meet you all, woof!” Ruffily replied awkwardly.
“And who might this be?” Pyri said as she moved around Ruffily to gently pet the snout of the black mare.
“Oh, this is Melon, woof! I got her as a gift from someone I helped out early on. When they got high level taming, they caught her and gave her to me as a thank you. She’s apparently really rare and hard to tame, but I haven’t had a chance to let her run around much yet because I’ve been in Orm. Rene will be perfect for her! Woof!” Ruffily smiled as she gently stroked her mane.
“C’mon, let’s pick out building locations.” Aegis motioned Ruffily down the paved road.
“Okay.” She smiled, leading the horse and cart behind Aegis.
“She seems nice.” Amlie shrugged before heading back to her farm field. Once Amlie was gone, Rakkan followed Aegis, Ruffily and the cart as Lina and Pyri watched them walk towards the two houses. From a distance they saw Tinsel, Luca and Farlion all come to greet and welcome Ruffily.
“She has my dream horse and she’s being flirty with Aegis. We hate her, ok?” Pyri said grumpily to Lina. Lina glanced at Pyri to see her glaring at Ruffily’s back.
“M-mhm…” Lina nodded hesitantly.
Construction Project Invitation
The Lord of Rene, Aegis, has invited you to work on the following Construction Project: [Forge]
Duration of Project: 7 Days
Compensation: 0,00,00 gold
Relevant Skills of Project Lead(Aegis, Lord of Rene): [Click to View]
Hired Workers [9/10]:
[Lina - Level 30], [Darkshot - Level 30] [Pyri - Level 30] [Rakkan - Level 30] [Amlie - Level 6] [Ruffily - Level 24] [Farlion - Level 21] [Luca - Level 1] [Tinsel - Level 3]
The project work began right away. Ruffily and Aegis selected a plot of land near to the River, a decent enough distance from the main road that the smoke from the forge wouldn’t be near the pasture, farm fields or houses. Aegis, Lina and Ruffily focused on cutting stone from the rubble while the others helped by digging out the area for the foundation and carrying the resources around using the help of carts and lagnoks. Pyri spent most of the time staring longingly at Melon as she ran around the Stable’s pasture.
It took them a day to complete the large 8 meter wide circular foundation of tightly packed, thick cut stone. Once it was completed, the others sat back and watched Aegis and Ruffily carefully build up a cylindrical chamber at the center of the foundation designed to hold the heat source of the forge. A great deal of discussion was given to its design, as Aegis made it clear they’d only be able to use charcoal and coal as a fuel source for the time being. Ruffly explained the greater potential of magma or powerful flame enchantments placed on the forge, but having no access to either at their skill levels, they instead opted to build the chamber so that it could be upgraded in the future.
Anytime Aegis had to utilize a ladder to build the top mechanisms of the heat chamber, Lina was sure to volunteer to hold it steady as a way to interject herself between Aegis and Ruffily’s technical discussions. She stayed up all night with them until they’d finished, and when it was done that following morning, Aegis took a step back to look at it.
“Good, we’ll need the forge working in order to make the iron parts for it with the bars, so we’ll cut out the first hole here and set up the bellows next.” Aegis pointed to a side of the heat chamber nearest to the river.
“H-how many people will be able to use it at once?” Lina asked, to participate in the conversation as Pyri approached to see how the progress was coming along, her Cinderbolt still floating behind her.
“At first just one, but we made this chamber wide enough that we can cut 9 openings in it, the 10th section for the bellows.” Aegis pointed out the different spots around the heat chamber they’d marked already. “We have to keep the heat in so it’s hot enough to melt the ore and forge equipment though, so we’re waiting until we can forge specialized iron doors for each chamber, that way when they aren’t in use, the doors are closed to keep the heat in. Ruffily’s design.” Aegis pointed to Ruffily as she nodded happily.
“It’s way better than the Kordas one, because it only has 5 openings and the heat drops down unless it's constantly worked by a bellows, woof! If we set it up with a water wheel correctly, then this river should be enough to power a bellows on its own, leaving the blacksmiths free to just focus on blacksmithing, woof!” Her tail wagged excitedly as she explained it.
“So what’s next?” Lina asked.
“We can start working on the framework for the waterwheel and bellows, we’ll need that to heat the forge before we can start working on the iron components.” Aegis replied.
“Right, okay!” She gave a thumbs up and they got to work.
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The following day was the slowest. Aegis and Ruffily’s attempts to set up a water wheel mechanism to function with a bellows was not going as planned. A combination of the constructions not being high enough quality and just not put together properly caused them to fail. Ruffily and Aegis were attempting to follow the instructions of a guide video that explained how to build and use waterwheels, but it was made for players who took the intermediate builder class, so they weren't able to rely on their low level skills or the abilities that the builder class player was using in the video, leading to a lot of frustrating failures, but they collectively gained enough architecture experience and eventually the trial and error paid off on the 10th attempt.
A large wooden water wheel was built over the river to capture the momentum of it and transfer it over a mechanism to the bellows built as close to the wheel as possible while still reaching the forge. The bellows itself was a crude one that Ruffily had brought with her, but once it was working they excitedly planned out crafting a better, more powerful and durable one using Iron and high quality leather.
Level Up! Architecture has reached Level 26!
“It’s time!” Aegis shouted over the orange tinted fields of Rene due to the sun setting. “We’re going to light it for the first time to start making the iron parts! I thought everyone would want to see.” Aegis cheered as he stood behind the waterwheel mechanism - it was currently unhooked so that the bellows didn’t operate. Luca, Farlion, Pyri, Amlie, Rakkan and Tinsel stopped what they were doing and all came over to watch. Ruffily loaded in some charcoal and some firewood, then took a step back.
“If you wouldn’t mind doing the honors, mom.” Aegis motioned to her Cinderbolt.
“Right.” She smiled, waving her staff to direct the cinderbolt into the heat chamber and igniting the wood, heating the charcoal until it began to glow red hot. Smoke began to puff out of the narrow top of the heat chamber into the evening sky.
“Tada!” Aegis motioned to it excitedly.
“It’s really just like a glorified camp fire, isn’t it?” Pyri said, looking unimpressed at the display.
“W-well, no, it gets really hot thanks to the bellows, watch!” Aegis quickly hooked the wheel up to the mechanism which immediately caused the bellows to start automatically puffing air into the flames to heat it up and cause it to glow much brighter, the flames dancing in the gusts of air as it let out a deep familiar forge sound. Aegis and Ruffily smiled proudly to see everyone’s reactions. Lina tried to mimic their enthusiasm, but it was obvious none of the others were all that amazed.
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“Amazing.” Tinsel broke the silence by clapping.
“Yes, it’s fantastic.” Farlion followed her lead and nudged Luca to do the same.
“Great job, Mr.” Luca clapped. Pyri just rolled her eyes as she pulled her Cinderbolt back to her shoulder.
“What’s the next step? Is it almost done?” Pyri asked hopefully.
“First, Iron bellows and mechanisms. Then the other furnace chamber doors. Then, we oughta build a roof.” He motioned up to point out that the furnace was still under the open skies. ”And work stations for people to use - Anvils, grind stones, the works…”
“So it’s going to take a while still?” Pyri sighed.
“Nah, that wheel was the hard part. I’ve already slept so I’m good for the next few days. It’s hammer time.” Aegis pulled out a copper smithing hammer and some iron bars from his inventory.
“I’ll go get my copper anvil from my cart. Woof!” Ruffily cheered excitedly.
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True to his word, Aegis worked with the others through the night and into the next day to finish everything as quickly as possible, consuming stamina food endlessly so that he took minimal breaks. And by that following evening it was finished. Aegis stood back to view the construction in all its glory, three days after it had begun. The outline of an incomplete paved road was now built from the main road to stop right in front of the foundation of the forge, which he stood on to marvel at the forge alongside everyone else.
Ten gray stone pillars were placed in a circle around the outer rim of the foundation to hold up a thin wooden roof overtop the nine workstations and bellows section. The inner cylindrical heat chamber stood at the center and narrowed at it's top with an iron mechanism to keep in the heat as much as possible without building up too much pressure. Stone reinforcement was built around the section of the forge for the bellows to protect the mechanisms of the waterwheel from the elements. The nine workstations had openings into the heat chamber that blacksmiths could use to heat their ore or crafts for smelting and forging, with iron and stone doors to shut and open as needed to keep the heat in the chamber as much as possible.
In front of each location was a smelting pot that fit neatly into a holder built into each of the heat chamber openings, made from high quality purified iron by Aegis himself, and alongside that were Anvil’s which used up quite a bit of his iron supply. The bellows itself was now high quality iron and leather and worked much more efficiently to heat up the forge to incredible temperatures, making it much faster and efficient in smelting and crafting materials than the forge back in Orm, and Ruffily swore it was better than the one in Kordas as well.
But, as per Pyri pointing out that it still looked boring, Aegis worked with Amlie’s farm and leveled up his alchemy by making dyes to create paint and dyed materials to give the furnace a dark blue color theme, doing his best to add small details in the stonework as tribute to Eirene. He’d hoped that he’d gain more favor from the structure and the end result was better than he could’ve imagined, and he didn’t hesitate for a second to rename the structure and register it.
The Great Forge of Rene [Rename] [Register] [Abandon]
Quality: 82%
Durability: 5000/5000
Option 1: The minimum quality of items created at this forge is 3%.
Option 2: Increases Eirene's favor of the land owner of any land this structure is registered to by 1000.
Details: A sturdy forge powered by a waterwheel, decorated in the name of Eirene. Constructed by Aegis.
[Rene] has gained 2000 Rank points.
“It’s amazing!” Lina cheered excitedly.
“Not bad, I think you missed your calling.” Pyri ruffled Aegis’ hair.
“Whoa, you can make anything with that! What are you going to make first?!” Luca asked with an excited expression.
“Nails!” Aegis replied cheerfully. Everyone’s excitement quickly drained from their faces, save for Ruffily, whose tail kept wagging.
“N-nails?” Pyri raised an eyebrow at him.
“Yeah, of course! But not copper ones, iron ones. You know, for all the buildings and stuff. Everyone needs nails.” Aegis said matter-of-factly, they continued to stare blankly at him.
“What about all of our awesome gear?” Darkshot groaned.
“I need to raise the skill as high as possible before I start working on the big stuff, so the quality of the big stuff is as high as possible.” Aegis explained after noticing their disappointment.
“Are we supposed to just sit around and watch you craft nails now?” Pyri asked as she crossed her arms.
“Well, no, you guys get to do the fun stuff.” Aegis smiled, but no one was fooled by this. “While I level blacksmithing, Ruffily’s going to build the other crafting stations. Sawmill, loom, alchemy station, y’know. That way I’ll be able to make all the goods in one clean sweep.” Aegis said with enthusiasm.
“You know this is supposed to be my vacation, right?” Pyri complained.
“I think we should join a union or something.” Darkshot joined in.
“Come on, Woof! Let’s start with the Sawmill!” Ruffily shouted cheerfully as she led the others away while Lina hung back with Aegis.
“Do you need any help?” Lina asked as he pulled out some ore and dumped it into a smelting pot. Aegis paused to look up at her.
“Uhm… yeah, sure. You still have some of the ore in your inventory - if you could fill all the pots, I can start smelting faster.” Aegis explained as he motioned to the other stations around the forge.
“Got it!” Lina nodded.
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Over the course of the next few days Rene changed dramatically. Next to the Forge, a large sawmill had been constructed with a waterwheel dipped into the river not far from the forge. Across the road from it were four structures. One was a Tanning and Leatherworking Hall, another was a Tailoring Hall with two looms already built inside, and beside that was an Alchemist Hall with two alchemy stations. Lastly, on the end, closest to the main road, was a Scribe’s Hall, complete with a bookshelf that held all of the books Rakkan and Pyri had finished reading from the upside down tower.
The road itself was now more developed as well. The main paved road now branched off at an intersection, leading off in four directions. One towards the ruined keep, one to the bridge, one towards the crafting buildings, and one towards the houses, and in the middle a large circular area was paved out to serve as a town square, though it was currently empty. A third house had been constructed for Ruffily using her own design, and all of the buildings now had windows thanks to the gathering of sand in the river by Luca, and the use of the Forge.
Aegis focused on leveling his skills to 30 first, and it went fairly quickly thanks to his leadership skill raising up and being granted portions of experience from everyone else's contributions. He used his woodworking and woodcutting to build furnure, his refining to smelt ore and make glass, his weaving and sewing to make beds, pillows, curtains, drapes and plain clothing for everyone, and alchemy was used to make dyes, paints, and spare lures. Cooking was used in tandem with Amlie's crops, Tinsel's spices and recipes, and hunted wolf meat. Tanning and leatherworking was used for tougher and larger backpacks to expand everyones inventory. By the time he'd finished making the best sets of gear he possibly could, he was only lacking level 30 in a handful of remaining skills. His architecture skill had gotten hung up on level 29 and he had difficulty raising it, as did his artistrty skill. His scribe skill had still been neglected at level 1, and his Crafting Mastery and Enchanting were only at level 25.
That evening Aegis had finished crafting and enchanting the last pieces of equipment for his party members and everyone was gathering at the townsquare to show them off.
Aegis, Lina, Darkshot, Rakkan, Farlion and Pyri all stood in a line as Ruffily, Tinsel, Luca and Amlie watched them equip their new weapons and armor simultaneously. The first to be put on was the armor. Aegis, Lina, Darkshot and Rakkan all wore matching dark leather direwolf armor over their white cotton clothing. The leather was sewn with thick lagnok thread that had been dyed dark blue, and the leather was dyed that same blue around the edges to give their armor a uniform-like appearance. Pyri wore blue robes with white cuffs and white cloth around the neckline, made primarily out of the highest quality lagnok cloth Aegis could weave. Next to them stood Farlion, now level 30 thanks to the endless training from Rakkan during the construction. He wore hardened iron armor enchanted with health regeneration and engraved with the star of Eirene.
Their weapons were all pristinely crafted as the final pieces of work Aegis made in order to guarantee them the highest quality, using the last of the enchanting orbs to make sure everyone had the most powerful weapon Aegis could supply them. Each weapon had a similar holy white glow from the bless enchants placed on them. Lina happily gripped the two daggers sheathed on her belt, while Darkshot and Pyri had their white birch wood staff and Longbow fastened on their backs respectively. Farlion stood together with Rakkan with matching enchanted Iron spears held by their sides. All of them wore simple dark blue cloaks over their armor with the exception of Aegis still wearing his Eirene Vestments. They hung off their backs and blowing in the light evening breeze. The cloaks were embroidered with a white star of Eirene on the back. And while Aegis was proud of his simple iron short sword, enchanted and sheathed on his waist, the item that he was most proud of out of everything he'd made was his shield, as he fastened it to his left arm for the first time.
Name: Enchanted Iron Shield of Eirene
Slot: Off-hand
Type: Shield
Armor: 1160
Quality: 54%
Durability: 300/300
Requirements: Level 25, 25+ Strength
Option 1: Increases Favor with Eirene while equipped by 250.
Option 2: -5% Damage taken from Abyssal Creatures.
Option 3(Enchant): Restores 15 health every 5 seconds. (Enchanted by Aegis(Healing Wind))
Description: A shield made of Iron and Ferrawolf hide, engraved with the symbol of Eirene. Made by Aegis.
A rounded front with a slight teardrop shape, ending in a rounded point at the bottom with the engraving of Eirene’s star in the front. The backing of the shield was made using the leather obtained off of the Ferrawolf to grant it the extra option.
“Hmm.” Amlie said with judgemental eyes as she paced back and forth, eying the group up and down. “Yup, it’s not bad.” She shrugged approvingly.
“Not bad? Woof! You all look awesome!” Ruffily cheered. Darkshot took the longbow off his back to run his finger along the drawstring.
“This thing is wicked. I bet it’d sell for like 100$.” Darkshot commented as he eyed it.
“Hey, no selling this stuff.” Aegis gave him a look.
“I wasn’t gonna, just saying.” Darkshot shrugged.
“This will help out a lot with passing the intermediate quests.” Rakkan said as he took another of his new iron weapons out of his inventory, the bladed fists, and checked them out. “I hope…”
“You’ll be okay.” Lina patted him on the shoulder to reassure him.
“Speaking of which, we should finally get started on them, don’t you think?” Pyri said while waving her staff around.
“Yeah, I suppose it’s about time.” Rakkan nodded.
“How long will you guys be gone?” Luca asked curiously.
“No idea…” Darkshot said worriedly, and it was obvious all of them were nervous about the upcoming quests based on their expressions and unwillingness to look at Amlie and answer her directly.
“You guys will be fine, I know it. You’ll be back here in no time, Woof!” Ruffily encouraged them. “Speaking of that, before you go, I have going away presents!” Ruffly ran up to them, and from her inventory she pulled out two simple iron rings with a matching white quartz stone cut into both of them. She handed one to Lina and one to Aegis. “This is for you guys, so everyone will know you are married, woof!” Ruffily cheered excitedly as she placed the rings in their hands.
“Thanks.” Aegis said as everyone was staring at them.
“T-thank you.” Lina said shyly while looking at her feet.
“Well, c’mon, equip them, Woof!” Ruffily said expectantly. They both obliged and put the rings on slowly, avoiding eye contact with one another. “And I didn’t forget you guys!” Ruffily took out another three rings, this time with a dark green jade in each of the three iron rings, cut to match each other. She placed the rings in Pyri, Darkshot and Rakkan’s hands.
“Oh, thank you, it’s pretty.” Pyri put it on without hesitation. Ruffily looked expectantly at Rakkan and Darkshot, but simultaneously Darkshot got an angry stare from Aegis, and Rakkan got an angry stare from Amlie.
“Thanks, I’ll just keep it in my inventory. Might get in the way of using my bow.” Darkshot said as he quickly made it disappear into his game inventory.
“S-same. Crossbow.” Rakkan shrugged as he followed Darkshot’s lead.
“Oh, one last thing…” Ruffily ran off towards the stables as everyone stood waiting for a few moments in silence, taking the time to check out their gear a bit more. Eventually she came back with a fully saddled Melon, leading her by her reins. Pyri watched in confusion and excitement as Ruffily approached her and handed her the reins.
“Here, you should have her! I’m going to be staying here in Rene to take care of the forge, and I think Melon is the type of horse that oughta see the world, woof! Aegis said you were looking for one, so I hope you’ll take her!” Ruffily smiled as Pyri’s face lit up with tears of joy, she dove in and gave Ruffily a big hug which caused her tail to wag violently.
“I love her, I’ll take such good care of her, oh thank you so much!” Pyri squeaked out excitedly. “Do you think she will mind if I rename her?” Pyri added at the end after letting go.
“I dunno.” Ruffily shrugged as Ruffly gently stroked Melon to say good-bye. As she did this, Pyri leaned in to whisper in Lina's ear.
"She gave us rings and her horse, we love her now." Pyri declared.
"Mhm." Lina nodded back with a big smile.
“What do you say, my cutie little Spoody?” Pyri asked the horse in a babying voice, but when she went to pet her snout, Melon turned it away and let out a huff of air. “We’ll work on that.” Pyri said undeterred. She then hopped up onto the back of Melon and looked over the land of Rene one last time.
“Let’s get going!” Pyri said as she tapped the side of Melon lightly and she began trotting down the paved road towards the bridge out of Rene.
“I’ll see you later, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Rakkan said to Amlie and she nodded with a smile.
“Don’t worry about things here, you’ve trained me well, Captain.” Farlion reassured Rakkan as he and Darkshot walked beside Pyri’s horse, but Darkshot noticed Aegis and Lina weren’t following them.
“What about you two, you’re not coming?” Darkshot asked.
“Not yet… I’ve still got a few more skills I need to hit 30 with, and I’m going to use the last of the Iron to make stuff I can sell.”
“Let’s go quick before he makes us help with more crafting.” Darkshot whispered loudly to Pyri and Rakkan, but everyone could hear him.
“The next time we see each other, we’ll all be intermediates.” Rakkan called back last, but it seemed more that he was talking to himself, and he took one last deep breath before stepping over the bridge, leaving Rene behind.
Aegis, Tinsel, Lina, Amlie, Ruffily and Luca all stood and watched them as they ascended the ramp and disappeared out of sight along the road to Orm.